Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Cat Symphony No. 3

Cat and I were talking and I gave her a quick update on what I've been doing musically over the weekend.  She asked if I could hear it so I started an audio stream and went into SL.  You don't need SL for this as there are multiple programs for tuning into Internet radio stations.  iTunes can do it and I believe WinJams can do it.  I know there are others but, beyond SL or iTunes, I have no need of them.  My understanding is that WinJams is the easiest to use on the Microsoft side.  It's also free.

"Cat Symphony No. 3" is another non-symphony but I want more than grooves.  I love getting a groove going but I also want something that at least approaches the complexity or structure I can get into something if I'm recording tracks in the old way.  It's a simple thing as there are two bits with one part for CDE and the other for AFG.  There's another CDA bit I may use, unknown.  Right now it's a long loop but it's borderline too repetitious for me and breaking it into multiple phrases can give good things.

So Cat liked it.  I like it that she doesn't generically gush about things I do as that means when she does say something it was worth her time to say it.  I may not like all of it as she hates the drum machine (laughs).

Maybe what I'll do is make some drum songs which aren't using Kellogg's Corn Flakes beats.  The only trouble with that is I hate making drum songs.  Apart from that, no problem.  I intend to do it anyway but all the time I'm doing it really I'm wanting to be playing something else so this takes a bit of discipline.  We shall see.

One thing that won't happen is bagging the drum machine altogether.  Although there are some substantial design problems, it is still a powerful machine and it will get more attention.  Whenever I've been advised to back off or lighten up musically, it has every single time been a mistake so it's crucial to keep pushing this out to wherever it goes.

Another way to 'enhance' the drum machine is to add more drum fill via drum kits on the synth to get all those sexy little off-beat hits in there.  This is getting into serious technocrappery, tho.  That's like when you use half a dozen synthesizers and a sixteen-port MIDI controller to drive "Achey Breaky Heart."

The big difference between this one and anything else is extensive use of an arpeggiator.  This is a software / hardware technique which defines a series of notes to be played.  That series will be played starting on any key by using that note as the root for the arpeggiation.  That probably makes no sense to you at all and likely the best way to get it is to hear the tune.

Arpeggiation is another trick but it's way more than just turning on a fuzz box.  It can be used artfully ... or not.  As with echo, it can get very messy very quickly so think fast there, Mozart.

I listened to the recording after and did not extract anything.  This is extreme experimental which means classified FCEO (For Cat's Ears Only).  I'll do it again on Thursday for sure.

No comments: